President Barack Obama threw the hot potato of insurance cancellations back to health insurers.

He announced Thursday that his administration will now allow insurers to continue offering their current policies to individuals next year, even if these plans don't meet the Affordable Care Act's requirements.

It won't, however, allow insurers to offer these old plans to new customers, a major difference between this administrative change to Obamacare and legislation scheduled for a vote Friday in the House.

Insurers who continue offering plans that don't comply with the ACA also will be required to notify consumers about what protections these old plans don't provide. They also will have to tell their customers that other options are available on Obamacare's new insurance exchanges that provide better coverage.

But insurers aren't required to continue offering their old policies, so it's not clear how many people this rule change will help. Many insurers may not want to revive policies they've already canceled. Plus, state insurance commissioners don't have to go along with this federal rule change.

America's Health Insurance Plans warned that this rule change, made so late in the year, could create problems in the insurance market.

“Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers," said AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni. "Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If now fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the exchange, premiums will increase and there will be fewer choices for consumers. Additional steps must be taken to stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on consumers.”

Both the National Association for the Self-Employed and the National Federation of Independent Business said the rule change won't help their members.

Katie Vliestra, NASE's director of government affairs, accused the president of "muddying the waters of an already confusing and botched enrollment process in the exchange marketplaces."

A better solution, she said, would be to extend the exchange enrollment period to 12 months and delay the individual mandate for a year.

Kevin Kuhlman, manager of legislative affairs for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the rule changes won't solve small business owners' biggest insurance problem: "skyrocketing costs."

"The proposal is really just a temporary bid that may delay immediate pain but will not solve structural problems," Kuhlman said.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the rules change appears to be "little more than a political response designed to shift blame rather than solve the problem."

Senior administration officials said the changes are being made under the federal government's authority to issue transition rules as new laws are being implemented.

Millions of Americans have been receiving notices form their insurers in recent weeks that their current insurance policies are being canceled because they don't meet ACA requirements. Many of these Americans have complained that the replacement policies offered by insurers, or plans available through the new exchanges, are more expensive than their old policies.

Plus, these cancellations contradicted Obama's often-stated promise that "if you like your plan, you can keep it."

Obama said he understands "how upsetting this could be," particularly after people heard assurances from him that this wouldn't happen.

"I hear you loud and clear," he said.

"This fix won't solve every problem for every person, but it's going to help a lot of people," Obama said.

The president acknowledged his "you can keep it" pledge "ended up not being accurate." That's because he thought most individuals would find a better insurance plan at a lower cost or the same cost on the exchanges, and those that couldn't would be protected by the ACA's grandfather clause. This clause allowed insurers to continue offering plans that were in effect before the law was enacted. The grandfather clause, however, failed to "work sufficiently" for some individuals, Obama said.

"That's on me -- that's why I'm trying to fix it," Obama said.

Obama also took responsibility for the failure of the federal insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov, to work properly.

"That's on me," he said. "We fumbled the rollout on this health care law."

He promised "marked and noticeable" improvement to the website by Nov. 30. But he couldn't guarantee that "100 percent of people, 100 percent of the time will have a perfectly seamless experience" by then.